Saturday, January 16, 2016

That Republican shit-show Thursday night was the worst of all in the infotainment political series passed of as debates. I'll be honest, after the 20th or 30th rant about how Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton destroyed America, I just turned it off in disgust and went out for dinner. The six of them had nothing to offer America voters, just red meat to the pack of partisan jackels sitting in the audience, applauding whenever anyone said something about "bombing" or "destroying" or uttered something patently false from Hate Talk Radio about Obama or Hillary. As Greg Sargent observed the next day in the Washington Post, the Republicans have surrendered to the base, amoral instincts of Herr Trumpf and to his gruesome tactics to boot. The other candidates, he correctly observed "have mostly given up on trying to resist the terms of the debate as he has set them, and have mostly accepted that the battle will be fought on his turf."

This is not what was supposed to happen. For months, the chatter in media and political circles held that at some point, one or more of Trump’s rivals would rise up and confront his simplistic xenophobia and demagoguery with the force of a real argument, which would remind everyone that Trumpism is not what the GOP is really about. This just hasn’t happened in any meaningful sense. And there is no sign that it is going to. As Jonathan Chait puts it, a strange defeatism about Trumpism has taken hold among Republicans.

None of them can argue with where their party's base-- the Frankenstein's monster they created by combining their economic royalism with the divisive gutter politics of the demagogues-- has gone. The newest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows what every other poll shows: Herr Trumpf growing and consolidating his lead over the more traditional Republican politicians, even over shrewd neo-fascist Ted Cruz.65% of Republicans now say they could see themselves supporting Herr Trumpf if he wins the nomination. Back in March, when he first started talking about running 74% of Republicans said that they could not see themselves ever supporting him. That number has steadily shrunk to just 52% in September, 40% in December and now... just 34% of Republicans say they will never support Trumpf (and it looks like Rand Paul is one of them). Chris Christie (45%), Carly Fiorina (44%), the poor Jebster (55%), Huckabee (59%), Rand Paul (64%). John Kasich (52%) and Rick Santorum (63%) would all have an even tougher time uniting the party around their nominations.Trump is the favorite candidate among 33% of Republican voters, up 6 points since mid-December. Cruz is still in second place with 20% but he's slipped 2 points, and Rubio, also skipping two points, is at 13% in third place. For Republican primary voters, there're no other serious contenders. Dr. Ben's grifting operation has a hold on around 12% but he's not going anywhere-- except to the bank with their checks-- and the rest of the candidates are basically margin-of-error candidates, Fiorina and Jeb sinking a few points, Rand Paul and Kasich climbing by a point, but all statistically irrelevant.Asked to choose between Trumpf and Rubio-- all the other having been metaphorically vaporized-- GOP Voters pick Herr with 52% over the slimy little high-heel bootie wearing Rubio (45%). Trump's one problem-- and one the GOP is plenty queasy about-- is that in the same head-to-head Cruz (51%) beats Trumpf (43%).

This last bit is bad news for the Republican Establishment, which hopes for a deadlocked, brokered convention, in which they can eventually offer their own candidate-- Paul Ryan-- as a savior. It looks like the base will accept someone more extreme and more authoritarian than Trumpf (Cruz)... but not someone they perceive it be weaker, wishy-washy or inauthentic, which is how Rubio is, correctly, perceived, and, more importantly, how Hate Talk Radio has been painting Ryan.Do you think the Republican base, with a hive mind penetrated and molded by characters like... oh, let's take Ann Coulter. The hideous Nazi harridan was on the The Eric Metaxas Show Tuesday telling the sheeple that God is using Donald Trump to save the U.S.-- and all of civilization-- from destruction.

“Unless Donald Trump is elected, we’re never going to have another Republican president,” Coulter added, warning that having another Democrat in the White House would mean that “it’s over” and “the country is finished” because there will be a “Supreme Court of nine Ruth Bader Ginsburgs.”

If Trump loses, Coulter said, she will probably “stop wasting my time on politics” since “a Republican can never be elected president” if the country fails to enact severe restrictions on immigration.“What is the point of talking about abortion or anything else unless you get Donald Trump in to build the wall, deport illegals, end this ‘anchor baby’ nonsense, stop importing 100,000 Muslims a year, in addition to two million Third Worlders per year,” she said. “It’s madness what this country has been doing.”Coulter went on to say that President Trump should “deport [Sen. Marco] Rubio” and members of the advocacy group National Council of La Raza.